If you could sit down for an hour once a week with a 1500 USCF I bet you'd be improving more rapidly than you thought possible. I am assuming this 1500 is a level-headed kind of player, the kind who could diagnose and then transmit proper advice. Any chance of this?
As I looked at your rating, you certainly could benefit from work on all phases of the game, not just middlegame stuff. You seem willing to learn, so I bet you will.
Yes you can stop playing High rated player, work up to they rating or if you going to play them play it unrated and learn from their move
To improve your middlegame, I would recommend that for three months straight you play 3-15 minute blitz games using gambit systems. I say this for the following reasons:
1. Gambit systems reinforce basic opening principles. If you know and play by basic opening principles, then you will know when your opponent violates those principles and that will help you determine how to make your opponent pay for his violation.
2. It is easier to study and remember the ideas behind a system than to remember all of the various lines of an opening. For example, the idea behind the Danish Gambit is to give up two pawns for rapid development of the bishops and control of key squares.
3. Gambit systems sharpen tactical skills like timing and initiative, which are the main components of the middlegame. It is said that chess is 90% tactics.
4. Have you ever been playing a game well in the beginning, but somewhere around the 10th or 15th move you 'feel' like you're losing? "Where did I go wrong?", you ask yourself. The probable cause of this is that your opponent has the initiative. In other words, you are in a position where you must respond defensively to your opponent's moves. Well, gambit systems are designed to give the gambiteer the initiative.
5. In addition to basic opening principles, remember these few things: (1) In the beginning, the queen is protected only by it's king. (2) Castling should be considered as developing a rook towards the center. (3) Tactics are basically finding the right targets.
Above all things, HAVE FUN!
Hope this helps.
I can definetly sympathize with you here. I've been playing and studying for about half a year and still I feel like I don't have a clue what my plan was in the middlegame. You may have already tried this but what I think it comes down to is having an effective plan, devoid of just developing or looking for tactics. Try Silman's How to Reassess Your Chess, it has been helping me a lot lately and I think it could help you to. If you've already done that, I think going through books of well-annotated GM games could help. I'm still waiting for a couple more nights of Hanukkah before my parents give me Nunn's Understanding Chess Move by Move.
Ya, tying everything together is the toughest part of chess. I'm really struggling with that myself right now. Taking a decade plus off is very much like starting over.
Keep playing and keep studying. One of these days a lightbulb will turn on, everything will be clear, and you'll play a near perfect game, or so it'll seem. Then you'll climb about 200pts, plateau for a bit, and do it all over again awhile later. It's not a linear progression.
chessdadx2, a year ago you were 798, and now you're 995. I just want to point out that you have made some serious progress in your game. :)
Now, let me look at your last couple games for clues to improvement:
Looking at you second game, this is what I meant before. To make 1200, looking at CHECKS and CAPTURES is enough. You need to add tactical THREATS to go from 1200 to 1400. As you study tactics you'll also tend to see more automatically.
In the following game, note how many CHECKS and CAPTURES you and your opponent missed. CHECKING CAPTURES are extremely decisive. You could try recording all the checks/captures you look at in the notes field until you make this a regular habit.
The outcome of these games was mostly decided before any pieces moved.
chessdadx2-hailaer(1653)
chessdadx2-Alice_12c (681)
as tonydal said one of the best ways to improve at anything is to in fact have someone who has a similar or slightly better player than yourself and play them repeatedly! if you look at many of the greats in any sport, game or activity they usually were great friends with someone else who is a great or not far off! Even many millionnaires were friends years ago even before they came rich! Same mentality and ideas
Again, another game against a <1200. This time you did not follow opening principles. And you missed a couple captures, which decided the game.
You have to examine CHECKS and CAPTURES consistently to make 1200. If it helps, use the chess.com notes feature to jot down the checks and captures you examined. You are throwing away too much material and that brings down your game. Like I said, you have improved in the last year, don't lose sight of that! Improvement in chess takes time. :)
it all takes time
my advise:dont give-up
"When I look at my past games, I sometimes wonder why I made that move and can't explain it."
you can write note when you playing ... to explan your move
This is more for those who play chessdad regularly (we have played about 10 times) - my experience is that he tends to hang pieces fairly regularly. The games where he avoids hanging pieces, he tends to play a solid game...
I think if he could get some help to just avoid doing that regularly (we all do sometimes), he would clear 1100 and stay there.
Don't be too hard on yourself. What you need to do in the middlegame is look at captures, checks, tactical threats by your opponent, tactical threats you can create, various strategic issues (piece placement, mobility, safe king, development, etc etc). For right now, just hone your tactics, your ability to see checks and captures, and your endgames. Middlegames are mostly tactics, so the more tactics problems and puzzles you work through, the more you're going to be able to see. This all comes with pattern recognition. That's the key to tactics. Strategy is long term planning, which a player beneath 1800 only needs basic knowledge of. But strategy comes with experience. You're not going to be able to find a book with strategy puzzles.
Until you reach 1700-1800, work on honing your tactics. Chess is mostly tactics and endgames. You should work on those first, get a few good books on both of those (Guide to Chess Endings for endgames and a good tactics book like Chess Tactics for Champions). I also point you to a link to some of my games, which include big, beautiful wins and horrid, pitiful losses. My coach and I are the ones annotating (I am edsnotofthisworld and my coach is tpkatsa). Those games will be very good and instructional for you to view:
http://chessinstruction.wordpress.com/
we'll asking online for help always works some1 to pin point the mistakes practising a lot helps to
this website has helped me a lot i used to play my dad when i was younger and i never stood a chance the best i ever had gotten was a draw against him because he accedently stale mated me but after a few months of chess.com i easily crushed him, noticing his mistakes and outplaying him easily time after time.
playing higher rated opponents does help but you need to understand what they are doing the best is to find some1 to explain the moves he makes against you and so on
Well chessdad is 1230 now... a full 200 points higher than when he initially asked the community for help 8 months ago. I wonder if any of the advice above helped him? Kind of hard to tell since he's never responded to anyone - in this - the thread he created in search of help.
In response to goldendog's comment, I happen to be a 1500-1600 player (and counting 
). I have already sent you a message about this, but I would be more than happy to diagnose your games. So by all means feel free to email or message me your games to look at and I will do the best I can.
-Eddy
I found my game improved when I found myself repeatedly watching a match between Kasparov and Short, not because of the match, they're on a different level, it was listening to the commentators discussing the match. I picked up a lot of terminology and sort of found a new way of looking at the game through listening to those guys. Your too hard on yourself. I'd bet your a lot better than you know. I've been playing 18 years but I'm still capable of making horrendous errors.
Okay chess.com community, here it goes. I am very frustrated. I have been playing for well over a year now, and no I don't expect to be a IM by now. But I do expect to be able to play a decent game by now, but sadly that is not the case. I do all the right things supposedly, study tactics, look at games I have played, study other games, etc. I have a decent opening sequence(so I am told), but then the wheels fall off. I know I am told I should study the endgame, (and I do), but my midgame is terrible. When I look at my past games, I sometimes wonder why I made that move and can't explain it. I am not giving up on this wonderful game by any stretch, but I wonder is this the best I will ever play, or do I have room for improvement? I am using chessmaster 10th edition, to help me, but I still feel adrift at this point in my game. Is there any way to help with my midgame, without neglecting the other aspects of my game? Please only serious responses, I can take a joke, I just don't feel like sifting through them to get to the help I am asking for.